He stood uneasily watching her pin it before the mirror; he could just see her profile and the slender, busy hands white in the dusk.
When she returned, slowly drawing on her long gloves, she said to him with composure:
“Some day ask me again. I really would like it — if you would.”
“Do you really think that you could stand the excitement of taking a cup of weak tea with me,” he said, jestingly— “after all those jolly dinners and suppers and theatres and motor parties that I hear about?”
She nodded and held out her hand with decision:
“Good-night.”
He retained her hand a moment, not meaning to — not really intending to ask her what he did ask her. And she raised her velvet eyes gravely:
“Do you really want me?”
“Yes…. I don’t know why I never asked you before—”
“It was absurd not to,” she said, impulsively; “I’d have gone anywhere with you the first day I ever knew you! Besides, I dress well enough for you not to be ashamed of me.”
He began to laugh: “Valerie, you funny little thing! You funny, funny little thing!”
“Not in the slightest,” she retorted, sedately. “I’m having a heavenly time for the first time in my life, and I have so wanted you to be part of it … of course you are part of it,” she added, hastily— “most of it! I only meant that I — I’d like to be a little in your other life — have you enter mine, a little — just so I can remember, in years to come, an evening with you now and then — to see things going on around us — to hear what you think of things that we see together…. Because, with you, I feel so divinely free, so unembarrassed, so entirely off my guard…. I don’t mean to say that I don’t have a splendid time with the others even when I have to watch them; I do — and even the watching is fun—”
The child-like audacity and laughing frankness, the confidence of her attitude toward him were delightfully refreshing. He looked into her pretty, eager, engaging face, smiling, captivated.
“Valerie,” he said, “tell me something — will you?”
“Yes, if I can.”
“I’m more or less of a painting machine. I’ve made myself so, deliberately — to the exclusion of other interests. I wonder” — he looked at her musingly— “whether I’m carrying it too far for my own good.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean — is there anything machine-made about my work? Does it lack — does it lack anything?”
“No!” she said, indignantly loyal. “Why do you ask me that?”
“People — some people say it does lack — a certain quality.”
She said with supreme contempt: “You must not believe them. I also hear things — and I know it is an unworthy jealousy that—”
“What have you heard?” he interrupted.
“Absurdities. I don’t wish even to think of them—”
“I wish you to. Please. Such things are sometimes significant.”
“But — is there any significance in what a few envious artists say — or a few silly models—”
“More significance in what they say than in a whole chorus of professional critics.”
“Are you serious?” she asked, astonished.
“Perfectly. Without naming anybody or betraying any confidence, what have you heard in criticism of my work? It’s from models and brother painters that the real truth comes — usually distorted, half told, maliciously hinted sometimes — but usually the germ of truth is to be found in what they say, however they may choose to say it.”
Valerie leaned back against the door, hands clasped behind her, eyebrows bent slightly inward in an unwilling effort to remember.
Finally she said impatiently: “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They all say, substantially, the same thing—”
“What is that thing?”
“Why — oh, it’s too silly to repeat — but they say there is nothing lovable about your work — that it’s inhumanly and coldly perfect — too — too—” she flushed and laughed uncertainly—”’too damn omniscient’ is what one celebrated man said. And I could have boxed his large, thin, celebrated ears for him!”
“Go on,” he nodded; “what else do they say?”
“Nothing. That’s all they can find to say — all they dare say. You know what they are — what other men are — and some of the younger girls, too. Not that I don’t like them — and they are very sweet to me — only they’re not like you—”
“They’re more human. Is that it, Valerie?”
“No, I don’t mean that!”
“Yes, you do. You mean that the others take life in a perfectly human manner — find enjoyment, amusement in each other, in a hundred things outside of their work. They act like men and women, not like a painting machine; if they experience impulses and emotions they don’t entirely stifle ‘em. They have time and leisure to foregather, laugh, be silly, discuss, banter, flirt, make love, and cut up all the various harmless capers that humanity is heir to. That’s what you mean, but you don’t realise it. And you think, and they think, that my solemn and owlish self-suppression is drying me up, squeezing out of me the essence of that warm, lovable humanity in which, they say, my work is deficient. They say, too, that my inspiration is lacking in that it is not founded on personal experience; that I have never known any deep emotion, any suffering, any of the sterner, darker regrets — anything of that passion which I sometimes depict. They say that the personal and convincing element is totally absent because I have not lived” — he laughed— “and loved; that my work lacks the one thing which only the self-knowledge of great happiness and great pain can lend to it…. And — I think they are right, Valerie. What do you think?”
The girl stood silent, with lowered eyes, reflecting for a moment. Then she looked up curiously.
“Have you never been very unhappy?”
“I had a toothache once.”
She said, unsmiling: “Haven’t you ever suffered mentally?”
“No — not seriously. Oh, I’ve regretted little secret meannesses — bad temper, jealousy—”
“Nothing else? Have you never experienced deep unhappiness — through death, for example?”
“No, thank God. My father and mother and sister are living…. It is rather strange,” he added, partly to himself, “that the usual troubles and sorrows have so far passed me by. I am twenty-seven; there has never been a death in my family, or among my intimate friends.”
“Have you any intimate friends?”
“Well — perhaps not — in the strict sense. I don’t confide.”
“Have you never cared, very much, for anybody — any woman?”
“Not sentimentally,” he returned, laughing. “Do you think that a good course of modern flirtation — a thorough schooling in the old-fashioned misfortunes of true love would inject into my canvases that elusively occult quality they’re all howling for?”
She remained smilingly silent.
“Perhaps something less strenuous would do,” he said, mischievously— “a pretty amourette? — just one of those gay, frivolous, Louis XV affairs with some daintily receptive girl, not really improper, but only ultra fashionable. Do you think that would help some, Valerie?”
She raised her eyes, still smiling, a little incredulous, very slightly embarrassed:
“I don’t think your painting requires any such sacrifices of you, Mr. Neville…. Are you going to take me somewhere to dinner? I’m dreadfully hungry.”
“You poor little girl, of course I am. Besides, you must be suffering under the terrible suppression of that ‘thorough talk’ which you—”
“It doesn’t really require a thorough talk,” she said; “I’ll tell you now what I had to say. No, don’t interrupt, please! I want to — please let me — so that nothing will mar our enjoyment of each other and of the gay world around us when we are dining…. It is this: Sometimes — once in a while — I become absurdly lonely, which makes
me a fool, temporarily. And — will you let me telephone you at such times? — just to talk to you — perhaps see you for a minute?”
“Of course. You know my telephone number. Call me up whenever you like.”
“Could I see you at such moments? I — there’s a — some — a kind of sentiment about me — when I’m very lonely; and I’ve been foolish enough to let one or two men see it — in fact I’ve been rather indiscreet — silly — with a man — several men — now and then. A lonely girl is easily sympathised with — and rather likes it; and is inclined to let herself go a little…. I don’t want to…. And at times I’ve done it…. Sam Ogilvy nearly kissed me, which really doesn’t count — does it? But I let Harry Annan do it, once…. If I’m weak enough to drift into such silliness I’d better find a safeguard. I’ve been thinking — thinking — that it really does originate in a sort of foolish loneliness …not in anything worse. So I thought I’d have a thorough talk with you about it. I’m twenty-one — with all my experience of life and of men crowded into a single winter and spring. I have as friends only the few people I have met through you. I have nobody to see unless I see them — nowhere to go unless I go where they ask me…. So I thought I’d ask you to let me depend a little on you, sometimes — as a refuge from isolation and morbid thinking now and then. And from other mischief — for which I apparently have a capacity — to judge by what I’ve done — and what I’ve let men do already.”
She laid her hand lightly on his arm in sudden and impulsive confidence:
“That’s my ‘thorough talk.’ I haven’t any one else to tell it to. And I’ve told you the worst.” She smiled at him adorably: “And now I am ready to go out with you,” she said,— “go anywhere in the world with you, Kelly. And I am going to be perfectly happy — if you are.”
CHAPTER III
One day toward the middle of June Valerie did not arrive on time at the studio. She had never before been late.
About two o’clock Sam Ogilvy sauntered in, a skull pipe in his mouth, his hair rumpled:
“It’s that damn mermaid of mine,” he said, “can’t you come up and look at her and tell me what’s the trouble, Kelly?”
“Not now. Who’s posing?”
“Rita. She’s in a volatile humour, too — fidgets; denies fidgeting; reproaches me for making her keep quiet; says I draw like a bum chimney — no wonder my work’s rotten! Besides, she’s in a tub of water, wearing that suit of fish-scales I had made for Violet Cliland, and she says it’s too tight and she’s tired of the job, anyway. Fancy my mental condition.”
“Oh, she won’t throw you down. Rita is a good sport,” said Neville.
“I hope so. It’s an important picture. Really, Kelly, it’s great stuff — a still, turquoise-tinted pool among wet rocks; ebb tide; a corking little mermaid caught in a pool left by the receding waves — all tones and subtle values,” he declared, waving his arm.
“Don’t paint things in the air with your thumb,” said Neville, coldly.
“No wonder Rita is nervous.”
“Rita is nervous,” said Ogilvy, “because she’s been on a bat and supped somewhere until the coy and rosy dawn chased her homeward. And your pretty paragon, Miss West, was with the party—”
“What?” said Neville, sharply.
“Sure thing! Harry Annan, Rita, Burleson, Valerie — and I don’t know who else. They feasted somewhere east of Coney — where the best is like the würst — and ultimately became full of green corn, clams, watermelon, and assorted fidgets…. Can’t you come up and look at my picture?”
Neville got up, frowning, and followed Ogilvy upstairs.
Rita Tevis, swathed in a blanket from which protruded a dripping tinselled fish’s tail, sat disconsolately on a chair, knitting a red-silk necktie for some party of the second part, as yet unidentified.
“Mr. Neville,” she said, “Sam has been quarrelling with me every minute while I’m doing my best in that horrid tub of water. If anybody thinks it’s a comfortable pose, let them try it! I wish — I wish I could have the happiness of seeing Sam afloat in this old fish-scale suit with every spangle sticking into him and his legs cramped into this unspeakable tail!”
She extended a bare arm, shook hands, pulled up her blanket wrap, and resumed her knitting with a fierce glance at Ogilvy, who had attempted an appealing smile.
Neville stood stock-still before the canvas. The picture promised well; it was really beautiful — the combined result of several outdoor studies now being cleverly worked up. But Ogilvy’s pictures never kept their promise.
[Illustration: “Neville stood stock-still before the canvas.”]
“Also,” observed Rita, reproachfully, “I posed en plein air for those rainbow sketches of his — and though it was a lonely cove with a cunningly secluded little crescent beach, I was horribly afraid of somebody coming — and besides I got most cruelly sun-burned—”
“Rita! You said you enjoyed that excursion!” exclaimed Ogilvy, with pathos.
“I said it to flatter that enormous vanity of yours, Sam. I had a perfectly wretched time.”
“What sort of a time did you have last evening?” inquired Neville, turning from the picture.
“Horrid. Everybody ate too much, and Valerie spooned with a new man — I don’t remember his name. She went out in a canoe with him and they sang ‘She kissed him on the gangplank when the boat moved out.’”
Neville, silent, turned to the picture once more. In a low rapid voice he indicated to Ogilvy where matters might be differently treated, stepped back a few paces, nodded decisively, and turned again to Rita:
“I’ve been waiting for Miss West,” he said. “Have you any reason to think that she might not keep her appointment this morning?”
“She had a headache when we got home,” said Rita. “She stayed with me last night. I left her asleep. Why don’t you ring her up. You know my number.”
“All right,” said Neville, shortly, and went out.
When he first tried to ring her up the wire was busy. It was a party wire, yet a curious uneasiness set him pacing the studio, smoking, brows knitted, until he decided it was time to try again.
This time he recognised her distant voice: “Hello — hello! Is that you,
Mr. Neville?”
“Valerie!”
“Oh, it is you, Kelly? I hoped you would call me up. I knew it must be you!”
“Yes, it is. What the deuce is the matter? Are you ill?”
“Oh, dear, no.’”
“What, then?”
[Illustration: “When he first tried to ring her up the wire was busy.”]
“I was so sleepy, Kelly. Please forgive me. We had such a late party — and it was daylight before I went to bed. Please forgive me; won’t you?”
“When I called you a few minutes ago your wire was busy. Were you conversing?”
“Yes. I was talking to José Querida.”
“H’m!”
“José was with us last evening…. I went canoeing with him. He just called me up to ask how I felt.”
“Hunh!”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you annoyed, Louis?”
“No!”
“Oh, I thought it sounded as though you were irritated. I am so ashamed at having overslept. Who told you I was here? Oh, Rita, I suppose. Poor child, she was more faithful than I. The alarm clock woke her and she was plucky enough to get up — and I only yawned and thought of you, and I was so sleepy! Are you sure you do forgive me?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t say it very kindly.”
“I mean it cordially,” he snapped. He could hear her sigh: “I suppose you do.” Then she added:
“I am dressing, Kelly. I don’t wish for any breakfast, and I’ll come to the studio as soon as I can—”
“Take your breakfast first!”
“No, I really don’t care for—”
“All right. Come ahead.”
&nb
sp; “I will. Good-bye, Kelly, dear.”
He rang off, picked up the telephone again, called the great Hotel
Regina, and ordered breakfast sent to his studio immediately.
When Valerie arrived she found silver, crystal, and snowy linen awaiting her with chilled grapefruit, African melon, fragrant coffee, toast, and pigeon’s eggs poached on Astrakan caviar.
“Oh, Louis!” she exclaimed, enraptured; “I don’t deserve this — but it is perfectly dear of you — and I am hungry!… Good-morning,” she added, shyly extending a fresh cool hand; “I am really none the worse for wear you see.”
That was plain enough. In her fresh and youthful beauty the only sign of the night’s unwisdom was in the scarcely perceptible violet tint under her thick lashes. Her skin was clear and white and dewy fresh, her dark eyes unwearied — her gracefully slender presence fairly fragrant with health and vigour.
She seated herself — offered to share with him in dumb appeal, urged him in delicious pantomime, and smiled encouragingly as he reluctantly found a chair beside her and divided the magnificent melon.
“Did you have a good time?” he asked, trying not to speak ungraciously.
“Y-yes…. It was a silly sort of a time.”
“Silly?”
“I was rather sentimental — with Querida.”
He said nothing — grimly.
“I told you last night, Louis. Why couldn’t you see me?”
“I was dining out; I couldn’t.”
She sipped her chilled grapefruit meditatively:
“I hadn’t seen you for a week,” she laughed, glancing sideways at him, “and that lonely feeling began about five o’clock; and I called you up at seven because I couldn’t stand it…. But you wouldn’t see me; and so when Rita and the others came in a big touring car — do you blame me very much for going with them?”
“No.”
Her expression became serious, a trifle appealing:
“My room isn’t very attractive,” she said, timidly. “It is scarcely big enough for the iron bed and one chair — and I get so tired trying to read or sew every evening by the gas — and it’s very hot in there.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 522
